Right now betting on Jimmy Rollins to turn it around seems like a Horn Bet. Unless Ben Zobrist is rolling the dice. Rollins is too old, he’s too tired and he’s too… Wait, he’s not blind. Though his average might make you think he could use some of Ortiz’s eyedrops. His line on the year is 40/6/27/.225/10. I just popped a zit onto a mirror and it spelled out, “Blech.” Rollins’s K rate, ground balls and fly balls are about where they should be. But, and it’s a J. Lo-sized but, his BABIP is sitting at .227. That’s way below his career rate. He’s been caught stealing five times which is a bit disconcerting, but he had 47 steals last year. You telling me he lost that much of a step at 30-years-old? Grey doesn’t think so, friend. His average will pick itself up, his steals will come around and he has 15 homer power. I don’t buy that he’s suddenly done, which is to say I do Buy him. Anyway, here’s some more players to Buy or Sell this week in Fantasy Baseball:

BUY

B.J. Frasordo – Grey unplugged, “This is for Cito Gaston. Frasordo, why don’t you come to your senses? You don’t let guys hit for the fences…” Frasor, Ryan then Accardo is the way I’d grab them. I would not own more than one, unless you’re really hurting for saves. Get off the bullpen benches, open the gate… You better let somebody close for you, before it’s too late…

Nate Schierholtz – For full disclosure, I secretly want him to fail so I don’t have to keep spelling his last name. He’s worth grabbing in NL-Only leagues for some potential, but power doesn’t translate well to San Fran, except for the guys on ‘roids.

John Mayberry – While Raul Ibanez is out, Mayberry will get the majority of the starts. He’s an all or nothing guy with some holes in his swing. If you need some pop, give Mayberry a week and soon you’ll be whistling and fishing with Andy Taylor for a new outfielder.

Kyle Blanks – Now Chubb, stick em. Kyle Blanks, was called up today and commenter, Corey, already gave him the nickname, The Pillsbury Fro Boy. Ever wonder what Prince Fielder would look like playing outfield? Check out the Padres.

David Murphy – He’s pretty much useless against lefties, but if you have the luxury of starting him only against righties, he has some decent value in deep leagues. He’s not going to win you any leagues, but he could fill-in for a hurt outfielder.

Casey McGehee – If the Brewers are batting him leadoff, he’s worth a flier in leagues 12 team or deeper to see how long he can stay hot. Though his minor league numbers are pretty yawnstipating.

Brett Cecil – Worth grabbing just for his Saturday start vs. the Nats. After that, we’ll need to see if and when he’ll start again.

Matt Downs – The Aints shipped Burriss off to the minors and gave the 2nd base job to Matt Downs. Shame on you, Matt Downs, for having two T’s in your first name. Don’t you know one T is all the rage? This isn’t a Buy as much as a “Wait and See.” Maybe Downs gets hot for a week or so, but he’s probably in over his head like Michael J. Fox in The Secret of My Success. If Downs gets/has 2nd base eligibility in your NL-Only league, you can take a look, but I’d expect him to go back to the mailroom rather than sleep with Sabean’s wife and successfully run the Giants front office.

SELL

Brad Hawpe – His homers are down so far. There’s a good chance he gets traded. And if anyone thinks he’s going to hit .340 on the year, I have a can’t miss way to make millions from the comfort of your sofa for $19.95. It will literally change your life! Now don’t sell Hawpe for a used Hypercolor t-shirt, but I’d explore potential trades.

Nick Blackburn – Mr. Blackburn has a 6-2 record, a 3.09 ERA and a popular list of celebrity fashion don’ts, so why doesn’t anyone own him? Cause he makes Aaron Cook seem like a strikeout pitcher. He’s now under a 4 K/9. That’s pretty terrible. If you own him, you’re playing with fire, matchstick man. So when I say Sell here, I’m more saying hold and proceed with caution.

Andrew McCutchen – Your window to trade The Dread Pirate could close at any time. Ask someone who fielded offers on Bonifacio in the first week of the season. Though ignore advice to sell him in keeper leagues.

Magglio Ordonez – When an old school manager tells an old player that they’re going to sit, the good ship lollipop is done sucked dry.

Nick Johnson – Averaging 2 homers a month. Unfortunately, the season is not 20 months long.

Adam Kennedy – His June has been one big grassy knoll.

Jeff Francoeur – After last year’s travesty, you gave him another go and he gave you 28/4/30/.251/4 through two and a half months. Might be time to say this is as good as it baguettes with Frenchy.

So as some of you might be aware, Razzball goes down for 15 to 30 minutes periodically. This is our webhost’s issue. They claim they can fix it but it’ll mean the site will be down tonight at 11PM PST for anywhere to 12 to 24 hours. So we may not be here on Saturday. They say it should be resolved by the time we wake up on Saturday, but you never know. Anyway, if you come here and we’re down, that’s the issue. And have a nice Father’s Day!

Hey Grey, as I posted the other day, I’d like to upgrade my steals and batting average and have tons of power to compensate. I targeted the guy who is last in pitching, any of my Top Tier SP’s (Beckett, Oswalt, Vazquez, Weaver, Jackson) for Crawford. He’s since responded that he’s interested but that the price is Beckett and Oswalt.

I think that is too much as I have alot of faith in Roy once the August sun hits Houston. He was quite simply, the best pitcher in baseball from August on. Soooo, would you…

Just got offered Markakis, asdrubal, and John Baker for Haren and Iannetta.
Instant rejection? I might consider Haren for Markakis but I want to believe that I could get someone studlier for Haren. Or am I just being too optimistic.

Rich Harden is sucking at the moment but something interesting to see is his pitch usage. He has basically abandoned all his breaking pitches and now throws primarily a fastball and change. Can he be successful with only two pitches? It worked for him last year but 2009 hasn’t been so kind. At least his arm is healthy.

I’m no Mr. B but . . . any suggestions on a middle reliever who could help my ERA/WHIP – my league does not track holds so pretty much all middle relievers are in the FA pool, including guys who are close to having save opportunities like B.J. Ryan. I’ve tried this a couple of times this season and seem to possess an uncanny ability to select middle relievers right before their worst week ever.

drop macdougal to pick up porcello? 12-team, 5×5, full MLB (razzball commenter league). i’m first in saves and second in wins, so i want a guy i can package for offense (so i’m inclined to keep macdougal)

@Grey: I’ve been trying to shop Lilly for awhile now, granted I’m selling a bit high..but he’s still a solid pitcher, but noone is buying not even owners desperate for pitching..so we’ll see how it goes

Im an investment banker so I spend a lot of my time using Excel and I’ve just used the following method to track my waiver wire pitching:

I first sorted all available pitchers in my league. I then used fangraphs to give me the stats over the last 30 days for all starting pitchers over 10 ip. I exported both into excel and sorted all the fan graph pitchers by the ones available in my league.

I then further sorted by ERA/Whip and K/9 innings to give me a list of the hottest SP over the past 30 days.

@AL KOHOLIC: I take a short nap, come back to pick up Blanks, and he’s gone to you already! Hard keeping up with the Lation 9 vultures. Have a great day at Churchill Downs. And buy some tootsie -frootsie ice-cream.

Does anyone know how far Chris Coghlan might be from gaining ESPN eligibility at 2nd base? In ESPN, he is eligible at 3rd/OF, and Yahoo, at 2nd/OF. Obviously, he is worth more if he is 2nd base eligible.

I’m likely losing two pitchers in a swap and was scouring the waiver wire. Kuroda is on there in my 11 team league where the top guys available are J-Zim, Porcello, Wang and Guthrie.

I seem to recall you being pretty high on him, like a no. 3 SP. Is he not a level above those guys? Where would you slot him in on my staff of Beckett, Oswalt, Vazquez, Weaver, Hanson, Liriano and E-Jax?

I just joined a midseason league and Edwin Jackson wasn’t drafted. I’ve love to pick him up but my pitching is already pretty good and the only ones I could see possibly dropping him for are Andrew Bailey (my other closers are Capps and Jenks) or Buehrle (also on my staff are Verlander, Vazquez, Lee, F. Hernandez, and Josh Johnson). What do you think? Drop one of them or hold?

@timSTi: Thanks for manning the ship. As I said in the midseason league post, we can’t do a master standings because the leagues aren’t public, but after your draft feel free to post your teams so others can see. Steve could help you with that. Good luck at your draft!

wow the eagles and andy griffith all in one post, pheeewwwwweeeeeeee….. i love it.

so one owner in my league goes wild over this deal

holliday/papi for JOHAN (i’ve posted this earlier)

and today another deal is pending now:

VMART/HALLADAY for Carl Crawford/MANNY

HMMMMM? and for this deal he posts a big “I’m COOL with this deal! yippeeee skippie peanut butter!”

Unreal…. seriously? I mean i think the deal is fine, one owner proposed it the other accepted, end of story is how i see trades… but Halladay is on the DL, threw a BP and still has pain, and he goes wild and writes 13 novels on my deal to get Johan? Yet says “im cool” for this deal?

The guy i’ve dealt with is another guys cousin, he won the league last year (miraculously) and we’re def’ly not colluding… the other two dealing right now the CC/Manny for Halladay/Vmart deal…. ones my bro the other is usually the league nazi/wins half the championships guy…. haha

but its just funny the guy writing novels is older, most of us are 23-28 years olds, so the nazi guy invites him in this year, we needed one, and he just writes Effff’n novels…. like i said he goes off on my deal where i’m getting JOHAN, and then says “i’m cool” and writes nothing on that deal where a DL’d pitcher is getting dealt with Vmart for two monster offensive pieces? I dont know, just craziness to me.

Hey as long as my JOHAN deal goes thru, i dont care, i just dont want people vetoing because I’M IN FIRST, and letting other deals go down because THEY DON’T SEE THEM AS A THREAT TO THEM. That is BS.

Het there Grey: need a hand here…offered Liriano for Bruce this afternoon and the respionse was “you offered me a 3rd rate starter for an OF stud” (he skipped of the future), but requested that I “do better.” Would you deal any of Hanson, Price, Wainright, Scherzer, or Carpenter in a 10 Team Keeper for the .213avg OF? What should be my offer order & where would do you recommend that I draw the line? Thanks!

Some guy in my league got Greinke for Carl Crawford. This makes me angry that I traded Ellsbury for Carlos Quentin. It probably makes the guy who traded me Ellbury mad that he traded Ellsbury for Cliff Lee.

What the deal with Reyes, is he gonna amount to anything this year once he gets back? I’ve just been offered a trade where I give up Cano for Reyes. I’m hesitant because of his leg issues. Without the wheels he’s not as valuable.

@Tony Y:
i like a league where a guy can write a paragraph .
my nazi has a rule , where complaints are to be e-mailed (privately) to him , and not posted on the message board .
a couple of “iffy” trades went through …. one guy complained , and the next day his message was deleted .
i don’t know how long i can operate under these conditions …..
or is that co-operate ?
@daniel p:
find a tougher league next year
@Grey:
so i went ahead and picked-up cecil for the saturday start …..
but , i don’t know …
these NATS are looking TOUGH .

If Chris Davis had put up Mark Reynolds’ numbers to date and visa-versa, no one would be surprised. But they were similar players before the season, so why are people (that) surprised/disbelieving of Reynolds’ performance?

@Joel: from what I read, his BABIP is .367 with a very low Line Drive rate and this is why ppl think he can’t sustain this rate…however, his career BABIP is .357 (i think) and all the other peripheral stats are in line with his career norms…so in other words, I have no idea

@BigFatHippo: hahaha nice hippo, just frustrated with all the FUSHNIKINS going on!

And someone in my league posted an idea to let each owner involved in the deal post their reasoning for wanting it, then they are locked from the message board until its voted on by the others….? I dont like that because one guy like the “novelist” can persuade the other owners however he likes ya know? I need to be able to rebuttle!!!!

@john: @Joel: What stands out for me is how much his HR/FB% has risen this year. Not saying it’s not legit, b/c he’s at or near his “magic year,” but his 27.7% HR/FB rate puts him in some pretty exclusive company, and it’s almost 10% higher than last year.

Davis, on the other hand, has seen his BABIP drop by .070, and his LD% go from 25.5% to 18.8%. His HR/FB has risen as well, but not as dramatically as Reynolds.

So I would say that his leap in HR/FB rate is what has surprised people about Reynolds. I don’t want to look this up, but I doubt that many players have seen their HR/FB rate rise so drastically.

Also, I don’t know how one could predict that Reynolds would already have 2 more stolen bases this year than last especially when he only had 3 in a season and a half in the minors.

@royce!: yea the running is another thing that I think has surprised ppl…On the HR/FB rate, it is a significant jump but whats amazing is he’s not getting cheap HR’s. I think he’s among the league leaders in distance per home run.

Im sure you all have said something about it, but MLB Network programming during the night is unreal. You basically see every at bat where something occurs in every game. Its a fantasy baseball paradise.

@BigFatHippo: haha, you forgot the crucial step..the native drums gotta be accompanied by a camp fire, dancing and lots of alcohol..otherwise no matter how much Albert Hammond you throw at it, mother nature just isn’t gonna budge

If I could get that type of pitcher for Rios and pick up Reimold out of the FA pool, would I come out ahead? I need HRs and I and I am getting the feeling that Rios ends up with more steals and Reimold with more HRs. Yes???

@john: Nice, I hadn’t thought to look up the avg. or standard distances for his HRs. You’re right though, he’s #5. Surprisingly Cuddyer is #2, with 420 “standard” feet per HR. And Gallardo has as many “no doubt” HRs as Votto, Sheffield, and a bunch of other dudes.

If you couldn’t tell, I haven’t really looked into these stats before. Not really sure what to do with them besides notice the oddities.

@royce!: Yea, there isn’t much to do with it other than notice for the actual home run ‘hitters’, he jacks the crap out of the ball which tells me that while his HR/FB rate may be up, he’s legitamitely deserving of these HRs. Whether he’s seeing the ball better, changing his approach or whatever, I think there’s a moderate chance he could continue this or something close to this pace. Does he get to the 45 HRs or whatever he’s on pace for? No, but I don’t think 36+ish is out of the question

I’ve posted a detailed Mr.B analysis in the forums under SAGNOF. I’m sorry about the appearance but the internets give me problems. Basically, it takes the Top 25 middle relievers who might be available in your league, ranks them in 6 categories (WHIP, ERA, K/9, K/BB, W, S) and then adds the rankings. The lowest number is the President of the Mr. B. Coalition.

my team in our 12 team roto league seems can’t seem to move up from 3/4th place. 8×8 with holds. nothing really strong on the waiver wire so i think i need to trade my way into first. worst cats are steals, saves, errors, gidp for both pitchers/batters. i’ll buy you a daquiri for advice on what to shop for and who to offer.

i already asked about haren for manny. and we play lf, cf, rf, util positions.

Just a heads up to Soto owners, something must be physically wrong with him…13th inning and Lou sticks with Koyie Hill, Andres Blanco and Aaron Miles with the game on the line. Unless Lou is very committed to giving him a day off, or maybe he just fell asleep in the dugout, neither of which would really surprise me I guess…

@BigFatHippo: They still make that stuff? When I was a kid, Reingold was going out of business, so he bought several cases of India Pale Ale. I snuck one – probably the only time I didn’t finish a bottle of beer or ale.

@AL KOHOLIC: There is the ups and down of fantasy for you. One minute you are elated over Howard, the next, Madson pisses on your ERA and loses a save.

Hey, I was moaning the other day concerning my lack of power. Today thus far I have to RCL dingers – one by Bourn Identity, and the other by Scott the Pod. What are the odds that that would occur in the same night?

@Paulie Allnuts: my gal nellie won about $100,i stood in the beer line and only bet on 3 races,next time im sneaking in my woodford ,buying a jiant coke and not standing in those lines,all-n-all it was great,another friend hit the pick 3 paid pretty nice to

@Paulie Allnuts: Haha, used to sneak Mom’s Schlitz when I was a kid…..

@AL KOHOLIC: Speaking of kids, Dashel got in his first fight two days ago. The church camp bully apparently choked him from behind on the bus. Dash beat the crap out of him, don’t mess with Dash, he’s cut for a 9 year old…..

@Grey:
nice call on cecil , but ,
nats are playing tough .
not sure i understand why neither accardo nor frasor was used after the 8th inning .
did you happen to see the game ?
or hear the reasoning behind camp and richmond ?

also ,
am about to drop andruw for thames , but would hate to see chris davis sent down , once i did .
thoughts ?

Anyone know of a website that shows team data vs a pitcher. Not like each individual’s numbers but like as a whole. For example like the Phillies beat up righties. I own Maholm but think I would be sending him to disaster if I start him in Colorado today. What you all think about Ricky Romero in Washington today? Better option then Maholm. Need some K’s, and the least threat of getting a Loss.

My trade of my Beckett and Liriano for his Crawford went through. That should square up my pesky BA/SB issues. In fact, I’d expect I should get 11’s across the board in hitting with Crawford, Pujols, Fielder, Teixera, Chipper, Braun, both Uptons, Choo, Alexei, Drew, Bruce, Furcal and Wieters.

Now…what to do about that pesky pitching side of the equation since I’ve dumped my #1 and #2 SP’s in the past week (Beckett and Cain).

Who’re you buying more? Holland or Cecil? Both had good starts this weekend. Would you consider dropping Coghlan for either if your rotation sat at Verlander/Beckett/Weaver/Bedard/Vazquez/Cook/Braden. I have Zobocop at second alrdy

@ Grey: Dlee and wainwright too much for youk? I like wainwright a lot, but like most of my pitchers (shields, harang, garza, etc also still have haren) he has nasty splits like todays game for example, sucks @ KC but awesome at home….as im sure you know….

Would you pull the trigger? he also has arod and is looking to possibly deal him too, worth throwing wainwright and either werth/mclouth/ellsbury at him for arod? which deal do u like?

@Doc: OH some posts i get confused haha…. if you’re getting votto i’d take it. He homered in his rehab game today. I gotta think there’s more to it than stress and dizziness though. Maybe some traumatic family issue? I dont know how you could be that stressed? He plays baseball for christ sakes! They have pills for that crap now…. but he is canadien? LOL

@Corey: anything would be more deserving than 8th…. i dont think a 3 hole actually, but a two hole, he’d be perfect, 5 or 6 hole would work too… the thing is he has kinda choked when they bumped him up, i just dont see why they dont try again. There’s no way i’m batting a .246 hitter ahead of a guy like KEMP…. NO WAY

Kemp will NEVER sit!!! I’d take Manny, Kemp, Eithier, Pierre in that order. Kemp is a S-T-U-D. I’d say HanRam is only a bit more valuable than Kemp … check the stats son. Still rather have HanRam at scarce SS, but Branyan surprises me with the average, not the power… Huff is solid, not great. Depending on who your SS is (assuming you have one) I like your side by a smidgeon.

@supermets: I say take this. Hanley is hitting for average and I think will have more power the rest of the way. Definitely think he is an improvement on Kemp, but people sleep on Hanley because he hasn’t been as dominating as Pujols first half.

@supermets: I like the Hanley/Huff side. I think we have seen the best of Branyan at this point (good sell high candidate) and Huff has the better 2nd half as between the two. I think Hanley is more valuable than Kemp (although I drafted and still love Kemp)